An Account of Col. Crockett's Tour to the North and Down East : In the Year of Our Lord One Thousand Eight Hundred and Thirty-four (1835), p. 172
Kontext: I am sorry to say I do doubt the honesty of many men that are called good at home, that have given themselves up to serve a party. I am no man's man. I bark at no man's bid. I will never come and go, and fetch and carry, at the whistle of the great man in the white house, no matter who he is. And if this petty, un-patriotic scuffling for men, and forgetting principles, goes on, it will be the overthrow of this one happy nation, and the blood and toil of our ancestors will have been expended in vain.
Davy Crockett: Citáty anglicky
As quoted in David Crockett : His Life and Adventures (1875) by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, p. 294
Kontext: I know nothing, by experience, of party discipline. I would rather be a raccoon-dog, and belong to a Negro in the forest, than to belong to any party, further than to do justice to all, and to promote the interests of my country. The time will and must come, when honesty will receive its reward, and when the people of this nation will be brought to a sense of their duty, and will pause and reflect how much it cost us to redeem ourselves from the government of one man.
Letter (28 January 1834), reported in A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834), p. 113, final paragraph.
“I don't know of any thing in my book to be criticised on by honourable men.”
Preface (1 February 1834)
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
Kontext: I don't know of any thing in my book to be criticised on by honourable men. Is it on my spelling? — that's not my trade. Is it on my grammar? — I hadn't time to learn it, and make no pretensions to it. Is it on the order and arrangement of my book? — I never wrote one before, and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book? — this I claim, and I hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a friend or so, and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. And as for grammar, it's pretty much a thing of nothing at last, after all the fuss that's made about it. In some places, I wouldn't suffer either the spelling, or grammar, or any thing else to be touch'd; and therefore it will be found in my own way.
But if any body complains that I have had it looked over, I can only say to him, her, or them — as the case may he — that while critics were learning grammar, and learning to spell, I, and "Doctor Jackson, L. L. D." were fighting in the wars; and if our hooks, and messages, and proclamations, and cabinet writings, and so forth, and so on, should need a little looking over, and a little correcting of the spelling and the grammar to make them fit for use, its just nobody's business. Big men have more important matters to attend to than crossing their ts—, and dotting their is—, and such like small things.
“I know, that obscure as I am, my name is making a considerable deal of fuss in the world.”
Preface (1 February 1834)
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
Kontext: I know, that obscure as I am, my name is making a considerable deal of fuss in the world. I can't tell why it is, nor in what it is to end. Go where I will, everybody seems anxious to get a peep at me … There must therefore be something in me, or about me, that attracts attention, which is even mysterious to myself.
“I leave this rule for others when I'm dead
Be always sure you're right — THEN GO AHEAD!”
Personal motto, on the title page.
Variants: Be sure that you are right, and then go ahead.
As quoted in David Crockett: His Life and Adventures (1874) by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, who indicates that he also often used simply "Go ahead!" as a battle cry, and general assertion of determination.
Unsourced variants: Be always sure you are right — then go ahead.
Be sure you are right — then go ahead.
Always be sure you are right — then go ahead.
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
On the US Congress, in a letter during his first session as a US Congressman, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 89
“I must say as to what I have seen of Texas, it is the garden spot of the world.”
Letter to his children (9 January 1836)
Kontext: I must say as to what I have seen of Texas, it is the garden spot of the world. The best land & best prospects for health I ever saw is here, and I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come here. There is a world of country to settle.
On President Jackson and the Indian Removal Act, in Ch. 17
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
Kontext: It was expected of me that I was to bow to the name of Andrew Jackson, and follow him in all his motions, and windings, and turnings, even at the expense of my consciences and judgment. Such a thing was new to me, and a total stranger to my principles. … His famous, or rather I should say infamous Indian bill was brought forward and, and I opposed it from the purest motives in the world. Several of my colleagues got around me, and told me how well they loved me, and that I was ruining myself. They said it was a favorite measure of the President, and I ought to go for it. I told them I believed it was a wicked unjust measure, and that I should go against it, let the cost to myself be what it might; that I was willing to go with General Jackson in everything that I believed was honest and right; but further than this, I wouldn't go for him, or any other man in the whole creation.
In a letter following his defeat in the 1830 elections, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 133
Kontext: I would rather be beaten and be a man than to be elected and be a little puppy dog. I have always supported measures and principles and not men. I have acted fearless[ly] and independent and I never will regret my course. I would rather be politically buried than to be hypocritically immortalized.
Comments on his final election defeat (11 August 1835)
Variant: Since you have chosen to elect a man with a timber toe to succeed me, you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.
As quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, Introduction, p. xi
Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836)
Kontext: I also told them of the manner in which I had been knocked down and dragged out, and that I didn't consider it a fair fight any how they could fix it. I put the ingredients in the cup pretty strong I tell you, and I concluded my speech by telling them that I was done with politics for the present, and they might all go to hell, and I would go to Texas.
“The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it.”
Preface (1 February 1834)
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
Kontext: I don't know of any thing in my book to be criticised on by honourable men. Is it on my spelling? — that's not my trade. Is it on my grammar? — I hadn't time to learn it, and make no pretensions to it. Is it on the order and arrangement of my book? — I never wrote one before, and never read very many; and, of course, know mighty little about that. Will it be on the authorship of the book? — this I claim, and I hang on to it, like a wax plaster. The whole book is my own, and every sentiment and sentence in it. I would not be such a fool, or knave either, as to deny that I have had it hastily run over by a friend or so, and that some little alterations have been made in the spelling and grammar; and I am not so sure that it is not the worse of even that, for I despise this way of spelling contrary to nature. And as for grammar, it's pretty much a thing of nothing at last, after all the fuss that's made about it. In some places, I wouldn't suffer either the spelling, or grammar, or any thing else to be touch'd; and therefore it will be found in my own way.
But if any body complains that I have had it looked over, I can only say to him, her, or them — as the case may he — that while critics were learning grammar, and learning to spell, I, and "Doctor Jackson, L. L. D." were fighting in the wars; and if our hooks, and messages, and proclamations, and cabinet writings, and so forth, and so on, should need a little looking over, and a little correcting of the spelling and the grammar to make them fit for use, its just nobody's business. Big men have more important matters to attend to than crossing their ts—, and dotting their is—, and such like small things.
Zdroj: Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836), Ch. 2
Zdroj: Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836), Ch. 2
Kontext: In peace or in war I have stood by thy side —
My country, for thee I have lived, would have died!
But I am cast off, my career now is run,
And I wander abroad like the prodigal son —
Where the wild savage roves, and the broad prairies spread,
The fallen — despised — will again go ahead.
“Although our great man at the head of the nation, has changed his course, I will not change mine.”
On US President Andrew Jackson, as quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 112
Kontext: Although our great man at the head of the nation, has changed his course, I will not change mine. … I was also a supporter of this administration after it came into power, and until the Chief Magistrate changed the principles which he professed before his election. When he quitted those principles, I quit him. I am yet a Jackson man in principles, but not in name... I shall insist upon it that I am still a Jackson man, but General Jackson is not; he has become a Van Buren man.
“Sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical.”
On being inspired to make an attempt at poetry, Ch. 2
Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836)
Kontext: Sorrow, it is said, will make even an oyster feel poetical. I never tried my hand at that sort of writing but on this particular occasion such was my state of feeling, that I began to fancy myself inspired; so I took pen in hand, and as usual I went ahead.
Last entry in his diary, (5 March 1836)
Comments on his final election defeat (11 August 1835) Ch. 2; in Dr. Swan's Prescriptions for Job-Itis (2003) by Dennis Swanberg and Criswell Freeman, p. 45, part of this seems to have become paraphrased as "Let your tongue speak what your heart thinks." No earlier publication of this version has been located.
Col. Crockett's Exploits and Adventures in Texas (1836)
Speech in the US House of Representatives on April 2, 1828, as quoted in The Life of Colonel David Crockett (1884) by Edward Sylvester Ellis.
This is from Pickings from the Porfolio of the Reporter of the New Orleans "Picayune" (1846) by Dennis Corcoran; it seems to have become attributed to Crockett in The Dictionary of Biographical Quotation of British and American Subjects (1978) by Richard Kenin and Justin Wintle, p. 206
Misattributed
Letter to his children (9 January 1836)
Comment to a friend about the US Congress, as quoted in The Life of Colonel David Crockett (1884) by Edward Sylvester Ellis.
On the basis of his legal decisions, in Ch. 9
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
Preface (1 February 1834)
A Narrative of the Life of David Crockett (1834)
General John Coffee, on American Indian fighters in the Battle of Tallushatchee, in an official report to Andrew Jackson (November 1813), as quoted in Life of Andrew Jackson (1860) by James Porton
Misattributed
“The party in power, like Jonah's gourd, grew up quickly, and will quickly fall.”
As quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 107
As quoted in David Crockett : His Life and Adventures (1875) by John Stevens Cabot Abbott, Ch. 11
As quoted in David Crockett: The Man and the Legend (1994) by James Atkins Shackford, p. 106
Speech in the US House of Representatives on April 2, 1828, as quoted in The Life of Colonel David Crockett (1884) by Edward Sylvester Ellis and in the January 1867 issue of Harper's magazine ("Davy Crockett's Electioneering Tours"), p. 606-611. Known as the "Not Yours to Give" speech. Though it may have expressed his attitudes on the issue, there has been dispute as to the authenticity of this speech as there is no known record of it prior to this 1884 work.
